117174-consolidating-server-rack-space
Content ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- boomboxes make everything better B) | |} ---- ---- Speaking out of personal experience, consolidating server racks is a tedious process simply from how these servers are wired up. The biggest time constrain usually goes to cabling. These cables are long.....and usually cover places that are extremely hard to reach. The image below depicts how cabling often goes in datacenters: good cabling: bad cabling: So you spend a lot of time just figuring out what is connected to what. After removing servers from the rack, you often have to redo a lot of cabling or you may end up with back network segments. Also even if you completely redo the cabling and hardware movement, your routers and servers need a bit of time to rebuild the entire Network map to get traffic flowing again. Firewall entries have to be cleaned and stuff has to be cleaned. As for people at the Datacenter, this depends on the contract they have. It can be a service contract where the people working at the datacenter do all the work, or they have actuall access to the boxes and Carbine does the work themselves. | |} ---- Very interesting insight, thanks! I used to troubleshoot wiring on B1-B bombers, and yeah, just figuring out what goes where is 90% of the challenge. And that was with technical orders and wire diagrams. :P | |} ---- Looks like Olivar is also a Chua irl :D . Notice how the cabling on the right looks like a tree? :ph34r: | |} ---- ---- Jabbit is already up and running. Only the US Servers are down for 13h. | |} ---- That right there is the question of the day. | |} ---- Cause they might have had to revert the mega-server patch if it screwed up? You don't want to remove your back-up servers until you know the new implementation is running stable. And let's face it, with yesterday's issues it still has a few quirks. | |} ---- ---- ---- If I understand the announcement correctly this consolidation is for all of NCSoft West's server operations and not just Wildstar. Shops will often replace older hardware after it's been fully depreciated or when the node hardware fails. They then get to take advantage of the five or so years of tech advances which allow them to handle more load in the same space. If you have a stable population or your current capacity exceeds growth estimates by enough of a margin, you don't need as much hardware and as explained before, retiring excess capacity can be a large savings on expenses. | |} ---- I sure hope theirs dont look like that considering they havent existed such a long time | |} ---- Well, from what they have said about drop patch's. They attempting 3-4 content patch's consolidated together + insanely huge bug fix patch's all at once. That it's easier to do multi-large projects at the same time. (Why they also say they working on Drop 4, as 3 code has been solidified and put on PTS, and that's why they can't even give us the non-content bug patchs more often than 3-4 months now...) Oh dear, it's gone from 'more staff than building the game' when megaserver was done, now it's 'limited staff' in recent cut backs... Ok, so it's likely it's a NCSoft consolidation not purely WS, tho GW2 not going offline... What you say, makes clear sense. It's what the dev's have said of late that doesn't add up. *Crys into his cupcake* WoW's currently adding servers to Australia and there lag's already half of WS. Oh god, I log on each day to check for wonderful news, and even my loved medic hasn't had a word from the dev's since the 'August' drop 3 patch info, and talking about Smart Heals for Drop4. but but but... I've been deluded, hoping that somehow it'll all just be sorted & best game ever. (As it had the potential there) | |} ---- oh man that looks like SO MUCH FUN to play in! *squees* | |} ---- It IS easier to release a single big patch than smaller patches, because at the end of the day, there is one base of code that always has to work together. Releasing smaller patches is better for getting content out quicker, but there is a cost in terms of effort. Rolling up several changes into one big ball is far different from taking on multiple projects at the same time. | |} ---- Or are they setting up bee hives? | |} ---- XKCD is the best. LOL | |} ---- I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought "Yarn!" (=^o^=) ̑̑ | |} ---- I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible, but you're confused. | |} ---- :D Made me think of Jeremy and his strings in "The Secret of NIMH"(animated movie, 1982, and yup more than old enough to have watched that when it came out :P ) | |} ---- ---- good cable management makes anyone with mild to moderate OCD want to cry with joy, the opposite is true for poor cable management | |} ---- ---- It's not really 3-4 content patches. It's like one and a quarter content patches and a bunch of bug fixes although from what I've seen of ptr none of the bugs that harass me on a constant basis have gone away other than imbuement quests no longer popping up nearly every zone change. The whole drop 3 fiasco seems to be more of a reactionary PR deal than anything else | |} ----